where is wally’s lab ? plan.epfl.ch: best ia practices in academic context natalie meystre,...
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Where is Wally’s lab ?plan.epfl.ch: best IA practices in academic context
Natalie Meystre, VPSI-EPFL
02.2015
How to find somebody at EPFL ?
Situation
• EPFL: Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne• ~5’000 employees, ~9’000 students• Main campus in Lausanne: a lot of buildings and levels
EPFL map
Campus 1978 - 2014
• A web application to help people find places and other people’ s offices.• Existing data: maps by the infrastructure department + people directory (name, phone, office)• Start 2005
IT project
IT developers team issues
• To build an application combining these data on a dynamic plan (OpenStreetMap)• How to calculate an itinerary ?• How to manage levels ?• How to maintain updated informations ?
• ... and many other features to add …
IA team issues
• A data visualisation issue• How to make it usable ?• How to market it ?• How to convince people to use it instead of their usual tools (googlemap…)
IT delivering
• A debugged application !• A homepage stuffed with features
IA delivering
• How to convince the project manager to go further ?
Some cases ‘against’ IA
• Too expensive• Slow the delivering• Too subjective• Too late• It’s a designer issue (colors & icons)
If an application has no bug and all the features are present, the work is done !
IA method
To do a user testing
• With few simple usecases to test a few users• Simple method (observation and notes)• Quick deliver (failded / success)• No bad tricks (let’s the project manager choose the questions)
plan.epfl.ch update
Improvments rather than changes
•Less elements on the main page•Better labelling•Less icons•Less colors•Organization of elements
Why are the users happy now ?
A truly pure user oriented app’
•Focus on the people’ s need (not institution’s )•Not academic at all
Find a person now
THANK YOU.
QUESTIONS?
Please Contact:Natalie MeystreEPFL information architect & web services [email protected]